Case Number 25407

RUST AND BONE (BLU-RAY)

The Charge

Love and courage appear in many forms.

Opening Statement

"What have you done with my legs?"

Facts of the Case

Alain (Matthias Schoenarts, Bullhead) is a nightclub bouncer who has
recently been tasked with serving as the sole guardian of his young son (Armand
Verdure). Alain's been struggling financially in recent times, so he moves in
with his estranged sister Anna (Corrine Masiero, In the Beginning) for a
while. As time passes, Alain finds balancing work and fatherhood a much greater
struggle than he imagined it would be.

Stephanie (Marion Cotillard, Inception) is a professional Orca
trainer who works at a local marine tourist park. During one of the ceremonies,
a terrible accident occurs and Stephanie ends up losing both of her legs.
Frustrated and bitter, she struggles to find purpose in life as she learns to
live with her disability.

Rust and Bone tells Alain and Stephanie's story: how they met, how
their lives continued intersecting and how they changed each other.

The Evidence

At a glance, Rust and Bone looks like standard-issue Oscar bait,
doesn't it? Come on, it's the inspirational story about a woman learning to live
again after losing both of her legs. If that's not an awards-friendly story, I
don't know what is. But here's the thing: it's really good. And it's not just
good in a standard-issue, Oscar-bait-y sort of way. It's a complex, thoughtful,
challenging story that observes two self-absorbed people forced to re-examine
themselves after a series of major setbacks. I completely expected emotionally
manipulative contrivance and what I got instead was something painfully honest
and thoroughly rewarding (which may actually be the reason it didn't earn any
Oscar nominations, after all).

I should have known better than to expect something run-of-the-mill from
writer-director Jacques Audiard, who previously gave us such rich works as the
exceptional crime drama A Prophet and the exceptional The Beat That My
Heart Skipped. Together with co-screenwriter Thomas Bidegain, he took two
unrelated short stories penned by Craig Davidson and fused them together
(changing a host of details along the way, including major plot elements and the
sex of one of the main characters). Though the two stories differ a great deal,
Audiard found a number of compelling thematic threads between them and uses
those threads to form the core of his story. Sometimes human beings need to be
broken before they can even begin to think about what they might need to
fix.

It's not that Stephanie and Alain are bad people. When we first meet them,
they seem like rather ordinary folks. It's just that when life pushes them, they
don't push back very gracefully. Stephanie has grown accustomed to being in the
spotlight and being the most attractive person in the room at any given time --
a fact she has exploited quite frequently. When her crippling injury pushes her
to the sidelines, she suddenly discovers that what enjoyment she had previously
gotten out of life was purely surface-level. Meanwhile, Alain responds to his
job difficulties and overwhelming parenting responsibilities with explosive
anger -- a response that tends to exacerbate his problems. These two sad,
brokenhearted people don't have much in common aside from the fact that nobody
else really cares about them. They don't really care about each other all that
much, either, but the fact that they're willing to be in each other's company
for lengthy amounts of time seems like enough.

Eventually, the two begin participating in some rather unusual rituals.
Stephanie worries that her injury may have ruined her ability to enjoy sex, so
Alain volunteers to help her test that theory. The two begin a sexual
relationship free of personal emotions or complications; she's attempting to
rediscover (or perhaps even uncover) her sex drive and he's just passing the
time. When Alain finds himself fired from yet another low-paying job, he decides
to put his raw muscle to use in the world of underground fighting. Stephanie
ends up accompanying him to many events in which a lot of blood is spilled and a
lot of large bills are passed around. After a while, they begin to feel like a
peculiar old married couple who skipped right past the early stages of passion
and went ahead to slogging through daily routines. At one point, things threaten
to turn sour when Alain (who has made it clear that he has no plans to be
monogamous) picks up another woman in Stephanie's presence. She draws the line
with understated firmness: "We're going to have to have some
manners."

One of the things I love about Rust and Bone is that its
inspirational moments feel so genuine. The movie doesn't pull any punches when
it comes to the challenges these characters face (and indeed, some of those
challenges are pretty stomach-churning -- particularly a startling moment in the
third act), but it never turns into phony cynicism, either. There are indeed
moments of joy, redemption and happiness, and those moments work tremendously
well because the movie never makes them seem like an inevitability. Much credit
goes to Cotillard and Schoenarts, who fully inhabit these people and never
strain for dramatic effect during their big scenes. The former received most of
the praise (all of which was quite deserving) due to her star power, but both
actors turn in remarkably strong work. There are so many ways in which this film
could have taken an easier, more predictable path to the finish line, and it
avoids them time and time again.

Rust and Bone (Blu-ray) has received a strong 1080p/2.40:1 transfer
that shines both during the visually rich marine park sequences and during the
shadowy, intimate late-night scenes. Detail is satisfying, blacks are quite deep
and shadow delineation impresses throughout. The DTS HD 5.1 Master Audio track
does a fine job of highlighting the film's terrific soundtrack, which blends a
subtle score by Audiard's usual collaborator Alexandre Desplat with an appealing
mix of English-language songs from Bruce Springsteen, Bon Iver and even Katy
Perry. The generous supplemental package includes an audio commentary with
Audiard and Bidegain (in French with English subtitles), an hour-long
documentary on the making of the film, some deleted scenes, a visual effects
breakdown, some brief "On the Red Carpet" interviews and a trailer
that presents the film as precisely the sort of phony inspirational drama
Audiard and co. work so hard to transcend. Le sigh..

Closing Statement

Rust and Bone is one of 2012's best films, a movie that observes its
rich characters with tenderness and honesty. The Blu-ray release looks good,
sounds good and comes with a stellar supply of bonus features. Highly
recommended.